Dayaram Anisha, Seeber Peter, Courtiol Alexandre, Soilemetzidou Sanatana, Tsangaras Kyriakos, Franz Mathias, McEwen Gayle K, Azab Walid, Kaczensky Petra, Melzheimer Jörg, East Marion L, Ganbaatar Oyunsaikhan, Walzer Christian, Osterrieder Nikolaus, Greenwood Alex D
Leibniz-Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, Alfred-Kowalke-Strasse 17, 10315 Berlin, Germany; Institut für Neurophysiologie, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Charitéplatz 1, 10117 Berlin, Germany.
Leibniz-Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, Alfred-Kowalke-Strasse 17, 10315 Berlin, Germany; Limnological Institute, University of Konstanz, Mainaustrasse 252, 78467 Konstanz, Germany.
Sci Total Environ. 2021 Jun 15;773:145446. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.145446. Epub 2021 Feb 2.
In climates with seasonally limited precipitation, terrestrial animals congregate at high densities at scarce water sources. We hypothesize that viruses can exploit the recurrence of these diverse animal congregations to spread. In this study, we test the central prediction of this hypothesis - that viruses employing this transmission strategy remain stable and infectious in water. Equid herpesviruses (EHVs) were chosen as a model as they have been shown to remain stable and infectious in water for weeks under laboratory conditions. Using fecal data from wild equids from a previous study, we establish that EHVs are shed more frequently by their hosts during the dry season, increasing the probability of water source contamination with EHV. We document the presence of several strains of EHVs present in high genome copy number from the surface water and sediments of waterholes sampled across a variety of mammalian assemblages, locations, temperatures and pH. Phylogenetic analysis reveals that the different EHV strains found exhibit little divergence despite representing ancient lineages. We employed molecular approaches to show that EHVs shed remain stable in waterholes with detection decreasing with increasing temperature in sediments. Infectivity experiments using cell culture reveals that EHVs remain infectious in water derived from waterholes. The results are supportive of water as an abiotic viral vector for EHV.
在季节性降水有限的气候条件下，陆生动物会高密度聚集在稀缺的水源地。我们推测病毒可以利用这些不同动物聚集的反复出现来传播。在本研究中，我们检验了这一假设的核心预测——即采用这种传播策略的病毒在水中保持稳定且具有传染性。选择马疱疹病毒（EHVs）作为模型，因为在实验室条件下它们已被证明能在水中保持稳定且具有传染性数周。利用先前一项研究中野生马科动物的粪便数据，我们确定在旱季宿主排出EHVs的频率更高，增加了水源被EHVs污染的可能性。我们记录了在从不同哺乳动物群落、地点、温度和pH值的水坑地表水和沉积物中存在几种高基因组拷贝数的EHV毒株。系统发育分析表明，尽管所发现的不同EHV毒株代表古老谱系，但它们之间的差异很小。我们采用分子方法表明，排出的EHVs在水坑中保持稳定，沉积物中的检测随着温度升高而降低。使用细胞培养的感染性实验表明，EHVs在水坑水源中仍具有传染性。结果支持水作为EHV的非生物病毒载体。
